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Symantec Issues Intermediate CA Certificate for Blue Coat Public Services
- CiPHPerCoder 10y agohttps://archive.is/FEZfj https://archive.is/FEZfj just in case this goes down. How to untrust this certificate: https://blog.filippo.io/untrusting-an-intermediate-ca-on-os-x/ https://blog.filippo.io/untrusting-an-intermediate-ca-on-os-...
- jdmichal 10y agoInstructions from parent are OSX only. Here's a post covering Windows and Firefox, which has its own certificate store: http://netsekure.org/2010/04/how-to-disable-trusted-root-certificates/ http://netsekure.org/2010/04/how-to-disable-trusted-root-cer...
- calgoo 10y agoIts funny how reluctant I am to install the certificate in the first step. I know it works as a vaccine of sorts, but still. It feels wrong.
- scintill76 10y agoIf you already have the signing Symantec cert trusted (likely), installing and even trusting that one doesn't make you more vulnerable than you already were. That's why it's troubling.
- AaronFriel 10y agoI'm posting this because within the past year, Symantec has gotten in hot water for issuing rogue certificates[1]. While Symantec has agreed to certificate transparency, Blue Coat is a known operator of MITM services they sell to nation-states, and this certificate would allow Blue Coat to issue arbitrary MITM certificates. It's not clear to me why Blue Coat would need to be a trusted CA by all systems and browsers, but given their own checkered history[2] I don't think it would be unreasonable to suggest they're going to use this for MITM purposes. [1] - https://security.googleblog.com/2015/09/improved-digital-certificate-security.html https://security.googleblog.com/2015/09/improved-digital-cer... [2] - https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Blue_Coat_Systems&oldid=721816010#Controversy https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Blue_Coat_Systems...
- MichaelGG 10y agoThey have a cloud services platform, perhaps it's for that? Symantec would get destroyed if they issued a CA cert that was misused, right? Edit: This product says it does real-time traffic analysis for user transactions. It's understandable they want to make this as easy for customers as possible, just like CloudFlare. https://www.elastica.net/cloudsoc/-- https://www.elastica.net/cloudsoc/-- or maybe I'm misunderstanding what it does?
- mrb 10y agoYes they have a cloud service: https://www.bluecoat.com/products-and-solutions/global-cloud-operations https://www.bluecoat.com/products-and-solutions/global-cloud... In fact, other than running a legit CA service, using this intermediate CA to intercept and decrypt traffic on their cloud is the only acceptable use of the intermediate CA I can think of, as long as they disclose to their cloud customers that they MitM TLS connections. After all, Blue Coat's cloud is their network, so they have the right to operate it the way they want. Any other use of the intermediate CA would be highly irresponsible/dangerous. For example if they used it in their SSL Visibility Appliance, any owner of the appliance could extract the CA private key from the appliance.
- 0x0 10y agoCouldn't they implement something like cloudflare keyless ssl to keep this (horrible) ca private key... private?
- mrb 10y agoThis would keep the key private, but would not contain the potential for abuse. The appliance owner could still invoke whatever mechanism is used to generate certs for arbitrary hostnames.
- mintplant 10y ago> In fact, other than running a legit CA service, using this intermediate CA to intercept and decrypt traffic on their cloud is the only acceptable use of the intermediate CA I can think of, as long as they disclose to their cloud customers that they MitM TLS connections. After all, Blue Coat's cloud is their network, so they have the right to operate it the way they want. Even that is silly - they don't need to be an intermediate CA to do that. Just require that their customers install a custom certificate.
- knd775 10y agoOh hell. This can't be good.
- taylorbuley 10y agoAssad's Syria, among other newsworthy nations, is reportedly a BlueCoat customer.
- supergeek133 10y agoThis is very much a case of "the who not the what"... they've been in some shady dealings with countries that explicitly have goals to deny freedom of information.
- 0x0 10y agoIt really sucks that there's no way to block this intermediate CA or even the root symantec CA on iOS; the type of roaming device where it's most needed (and most likely to be used with random wifi).
- StavrosK 10y agoSo, how much of my internet will break if I distrust the Symantec cert on my machine?
- vox_mollis 10y agoIf your threat model contains nation-states, you shouldn't be trusting any CAs in the first place. With a nation-state adversary, you really need to be manually verifying certificate hashes that have been securely communicated to you out of band.
- bigiain 10y agoSure - but from the (to be taken with appropriate credibility rating) WikiPedia page for BlueCoat: "Blue Coat products are primarily used by enterprises, schools, hospitals, governments, and public agencies to block malware and malicious threats, control access to applications and content in the workplace, surveillance, censorship, and improve the performance of network applications." I'm resigned to acknowledging that if the NSA (GHCQ/ASD/insert-local-equivalent at least for five-eyes nations) wants to investigate _me_ specifically, I'm fucked and my only option is to not use the internet (or telephones or mail or or or). I'm not (yet) prepared to give up and hand that level of access to my digital life to enterprises, schools, (most bits of the) government, or public agencies.
- vox_mollis 10y agoOk, so if your adversary is your employer or your school, you are presumably using a network not controlled by you, in which case your endpoint ought to already be a VPN. A good number of employer or school-provider devices will have their own certificates preinstalled anyway. Nobody ever said privacy was convenient.
- bigiain 10y agoI'm good with my work or school owned/issued device trusting a root cert installed by that device's owner. I'm _not good with a school or employer's network being able to generate arbitrary certs for my email, bank, social networks, etc - WITHOUT ME KNOWING ABOUT IT ON MY PERSONAL DEVICES... Sure, MitM me if it's your network - but I 100% should be able to rely on my browser on my device reliably being able to tell me "You're attempting to visit https://mybank.com https://mybank.com, but the certificate identifies it as mybank.suspiciouscorp.net Continue anyway (not recommended): [OK] [Hell no!]"
- bigiain 10y agoI wonder just how many certs I'd notice failing if I pulled Symantec's root out of my keystore - and if I'd get any mileage contacting the sites that end up broken and explaining why. This is exactly the sort of thing I'd like to have the "CA death penalty" seriously considered against Symantec - but I fear they're going to be judged "too big to fail". A grass roots campaign of contacting sites (especially sites I've got paid accounts with) saying "Sorry, I can't use your site anymore because I've had to disable Symantec's root keys (see this link for reasons), can I please cancel my billing." might be the only thing I can do. (Oh, and joy! https://www.apple.com https://www.apple.com is secured by a Symantec cert for me right now. How much would you bet against all my Mac OS X and iOS software updates also being "secured" that way?)
- niels_olson 10y agoMaybe a browser extension that generates this email automatically to automatically send to the screen-scraped contact-us web email address/form? "Hi, I use bigiainDisconnectAdblockPlus-thingy and just wanted to let you know I didn't visit your site because I can't trust your certificates, which come from Symantec. Here's the fingerprint of that cert xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx and here's why I can't trust it <link to explanation/tirade/manifesto>"
- avs733 10y agoI would use that and donate to it.
- snuxoll 10y agoIIRC Apple uses their own Root CA for signing updates and applications on the App Store + Gatekeeper-signed bundles.
- tombrossman 10y agoWhat I would really like to see is a curated list of CAs and intermediates instead of the huge list my browser currently trusts. Preferably a browser extension like EFF's Privacy Badger, to make it easier to use. I have gone into Firefox's settings and deleted random certs like the Hong Kong Post Office and this didn't break any of the sites I use, but all certificates are re-installed each time Firefox updates. Thinking more globally, someone living in Hong Kong might prefer to keep the Post Office one but distrust all American CA's from their browser and they should be accommodated too. Imagine treating the set of trusted CAs in your browser just like your ad blocker's filter list. You would damn sure need a trustworthy curator to maintain that list, but it seems doable (in my admittedly non-expert and humble opinion). Does such a thing exist? Moxie's Convergence extension is the closest thing to it that I'm aware of: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convergence_%28SSL%29 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convergence_%28SSL%29
- vardump 10y agoWhat was Symantec thinking? Doing decisions that undermine their whole business? Unless there's something that can explain this in better light, it's time to untrust Symantec brands and stop purchasing their certificates. Is it really that VeriSign, one of the pioneers in CA industry, cannot be trusted anymore? Remember that also Thawte is their brand. Incredible.
- Aoreias 10y agoThis isn't necessarily as nefarious as it seems - Blue Coat is going to have to comply with Symantec's Certification Practice Statement(CPS) which prohibits the issuance of MitM certificates. In all likelihood it's to allow Blue Coat to roll out a service that allows it to create certificates for clients of its security services. Any deviation from that CPS would necessitate revoking this intermediate certificate. That said, I'm quite curious though if Google is going to require that Blue Coat submit all issued certificates to be submitted to Certificate Transparency logs like the rest of Symantec's certificates[0]. [0] https://security.googleblog.com/2015/10/sustaining-digital-certificate-security.html https://security.googleblog.com/2015/10/sustaining-digital-c...
- lallysingh 10y agoI'm hesitant to relax here. Blue Coat's got a nasty history of making money off of the regimes that'd do this without hesitation: https://www.newsrecord.co/us-based-internet-surveillance-technology-used-by-authoritarian-regimes/ https://www.newsrecord.co/us-based-internet-surveillance-tec...
- Aoreias 10y agoSure, but if they started issuing MitM certs ANYWHERE then Symantec would have no choice but to revoke the CA's certificate. It doesn't matter if the CA was functioning for a corrupt regime or a well-intentioned business legitimately MitM'ing employees traffic. If Symantec didn't revoke the certificate then it would almost certainly lead to their root certificate being untrusted by major browsers and destroy their entire certificate business.
- lallysingh 10y agoBetween the time of issue and renovation, a lot of people can get arrested, monitored, or blackmailed.
- glasz 10y agothat's how the beautiful rule of law works. damage done, people killed, complaint rejected, "overruled".
- dang 10y agoAlso https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11781875 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11781875.
- mtgx 10y agoIsn't the dead-line for Google removing Symantec from Chrome supposed to be this June? (if they don't adopt CT for all of their certificates by then, that is)
- shwash 10y agoThey are in the process of adopting it and emailing all their users to signup for CT.
- pfg 10y agoGoogle hasn't said anything about removing Symantec under those circumstances. Failing to publish a certificate will result in a browser warning for visitors beginning June 1st[1]. [1]: https://groups.google.com/a/chromium.org/forum/#!topic/ct-policy/hNKxsHIO8gU https://groups.google.com/a/chromium.org/forum/#!topic/ct-po...
- 0x0 10y agoYou know, the main job for a web CA is to verify the owner of a domain. What if... domain registrars had that job instead? They definitively know the domain registrant, no need to play games with email verification tokens or http challenges.
- gruez 10y agothat's pretty much DNSSEC/DANE
- tomc1985 10y agoand then hope that every registrar out there is honest...
- 0x0 10y agoNot really, it could be set up so registrar CAs would only be valid for domains they are registrars for. Then you just need to pick one trustworthy registrar for your own domains, and you're set. If you can't trust your registrar with your domains, you have bigger problems anyway.
- inopinatus 10y agoDomain registries & registrars do not generally verify the identity of the registrant. It can occur, but only if trademark protection mechanisms are invoked. By testing the DNS, you really verify the domain operator, which in practice means anyone who can update the NS/DS/glue records. It's arguably quite a weak assertion. Similarly this explains why DV certificates are cheap and EV certificates are less cheap.
- 0x0 10y agoI was talking about DV certificates. The registrar is in the perfect position to provide this. You could probably even set it up so nobody but the real registrar can issue certificates for a given domain, as opposed to the current free-for-all.
- glasz 10y agoonce again, evidence how completely broken the ca system is. let the blame game begin.
- mikecb 10y ago'azet noted in another forum that with pathlen:0, this cert cannot be used to issue other intermediate certs, such as they would to place in a traffic inspection device.
- kerkeslager 10y agoBlue Coat can trivially work around this limitation by placing the intermediate cert on a server. Now when the traffic inspection device wants a (leaf) cert, it calls home to the server and the server provides it.
- mikecb 10y agoSeems like it would have unacceptable performance limitations.
- kerkeslager 10y agoThat's your source of security? Performance limitations? I'm not even convinced it would have performance limitations. Let's say Alice and Bob are communicating and Eve has the BlueCoat device in the middle. Alice sends the initial connection request to Bob, but Eve gets it instead. Eve then sends a new initial request to Bob AND a request to the BlueCoat server to get the fake cert in parallel. As long as the BlueCoat server responds with similar latency to Bob, Alice won't see any significant difference in latency as compared to Eve simply forwarding the requests.
- mikecb 10y agoI didn't say that at all.
- kerkeslager 10y agoOkay, so what did you mean when you said, "Seems like it would have unacceptable performance limitations."
- 10y ago
- glenjamin 10y agoThis sounds like a good time to mention https://perspectives-project.org/ https://perspectives-project.org/. It augments the standard CA trust model with one based on figuring out what certs everyone else is seeing, and whether or not that's changed recently. I think it's been a little bit inactive of late, due to poor takeup - but it would certainly benefit from more users and more people contributing to the project.
- netheril96 10y ago> I think it's been a little bit inactive of late, due to poor takeup I just checked out the website, and found it interesting. And then I found it only has a Firefox extension, but not a Chrome extension. Given that the Chrome's market share is several times that of Firefox globally, maybe that is the reason of the poor takeup?
- josephlord 10y agoI'd forgotten that Symantec had acquired Verisign at some point and they are huge certificate supplier. I was planning to untrust Symantec but not sure that is feasible for the Verisign certs too.
- svenfaw 10y agoBear in mind that Symantec also owns Thawte.
- maulwuff 10y agoTL;TR: Don't get wild for no reason. Take instead a look at the certificate. pathlen=0 I doubt that this certificate will be used on BlueCoat appliances to MITM connections. It has a pathlen of 0 which means that it can be used to sign leaf certificates (i.e. for servers) but it cannot be used to create an additional CA. Thus in order to use this CA certificate for MITM on BlueCoat devices BlueCoat would install this certificate including its private key on all BlueCoat devices which would quickly expose the private key to the public. I think that this certificate is more used inside BlueCoat's own infrastructure, i.e. to sign their companies certificates. This would be similar to what Google and others do for a long time already. And with a similar setup, i.e. "Google Internet Authority G2" has also a pathlen=0. (this is a copy of my post on reddit/r/netsec).
- throwaway2048 10y agonot true, bluecoat devices could simply ask a bluecoat server with the CA for arbitrary certs.
- maulwuff 10y agoThat's actually a possibility but I very much doubt this would be used in practice. Apart from the scaling problem there is a more serious problem which would make use of this certificate for lots of MITM impossible: - today's browsers use certificate pinning, i.e. Chrome, Firefox... have predefined lists of sites where they know which public key to expect. One example of such a site is google.com. - The browser will usually complain if the certificate for this site is not the expected one. - The browser will not complain on pinned certificates if the CA issuing this certificate was explicitly added as trusted into the browser. This is to allow legal SSL interception, i.e. the one done in lots of companies to protect against malware and data leakage and done by several desktop AV products for the same reason. Thus, if the certificate is signed by the BlueCoat CA which is implicitly trusted due to derived trust then the browser will complain because the certificate does not match the expected (pinned) one. If instead the certificate was signed by an explicitly installed CA the browser will not complain. That's actually the way the usage of misissued certificates in Iran was detected (ComodoHacker). So this behavior would make the use of this BlueCoat CA for many MITM attacks impractical.